


You Say That Like It's a Bad Thing

by Randominity



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Mpreg, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 21:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randominity/pseuds/Randominity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is vaguely Buddha-like, protrudent belly and gaze of stern concentration on his face, his grip on the paintbrush awkward but precise. Elijah watches him work and suddenly thinks, wow, this kid is going to be so lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Say That Like It's a Bad Thing

_"Just when a fella's got used to Hollywood life, you decide to set up shop on the East coast," Dom had joked the first time they'd seriously discussed moving._

_"You know you love it," Elijah'd said, draping an arm over Dom's shoulder and pressing a kiss to a spot behind his ear. "Come on," he'd added. "You can be a socialite and chat up people about Tennessee Williams plays."_

_Dom would go anywhere Elijah went, socialite or not. They both knew this. He'd pretended to consider, musing, "like a Southern butterfly?"_

_"Come with me," Elijah'd said, and Dom had come._

\--

"Wanna see something cool?" Dom grins at him and waggles his eyebrows, and if there were a simple movie plot for destruction and mayhem, it would start like this, on the street outside a deli in Manhattan.

Elijah meets Dom's grin and smiles sweetly. "Nope," he says.

Dom does his best to look disdainful. "It'll be the most exciting thing you'll ever see in your life."

"Me and my deli sandwich are just going to have to live with that, I'm afraid."

"Mmm, wrong answer," Dom says, and makes a grab for Elijah's wrist, tugging him down the sidewalk. Elijah lets him, with a few token protests. He could stop Dom with a word, but secretly he sort of likes using his weight against Dom, so that Dom has to hold on to him tightly. There's another deli a block down, around the corner, where a few homeless have congregated on the stoop. At the end of the street there's a hulking mass of a machine with a few more sleeping bodies at its base. Dom slows down and Elijah's not sure which of these he's supposed to pay more attention to.

"Brilliant, isn't it?" Dom asks him, and points at the hulking mass. "It's just one of these old abandoned carnival machines, in the middle of the sidewalk."

"Hey, that's great, very _Big_ ," Elijah agrees. At Dom's prodding look he continues with, "what does it do, tell your fortune?"

"Well, that's-" Dom frowns a little, retrieving his wallet. "That's what I haven't really figured out, yet." He extracts a quarter. "It's kind of hard to read since it's not all lit up."

"And the glass is all dirty," Elijah adds. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to know what made the glass dirty. He suspects passerbys are using it as a urinal, or peep-show glass, or something worse. "Wait!" he says, when Dom glibly drops the quarter in. "The thing isn't even working, what're you doing?"

"Making a wish, man," Dom says. "Come on, you don't need a wishing well when you've got, um." He eyes it. "A quirky non-functioning apparatus lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Have some fun! Get out a quarter." Elijah makes a face at him, and Dom makes one back. Dom wins, naturally. "I've done this lots of times already," he goes on, pleading with his eyes now. "Wish for something crazy, go on." He leans in. "Wish you could grow breasts overnight so you'd always have something to play with."

Elijah laughs at that one, and reaches for his own wallet. "Okay, that sounds like it's more for you than me," he says.

Dom shrugs. "You, me, what's good for the goose."

Elijah pauses with his hand above the coin slot, and promptly suffers from a case of shy brain. "Okay, I can't think of one," he says sheepishly.

"Oh, for god's sake--"

"I'm sorry!" he says. "There's nothing I want right now."

Dom looks at him like he knows better. "No wildest dream."

Elijah shrugs. "I'd kinda like to finish my sandwich, but otherwise?"

"You come fe make a wish, but you bite off more dan you cyan chew," an old woman sleeping next to the machine says loudly, and Elijah makes a sound he'd rather not admit to making. Dom looks over at Elijah and mouths ' _me_?' Elijah shakes his head.

The woman is probably about ninety, her brown skin more like tissue paper stretched over her thin bones. Her hair is white and wild and frayed around her face. She struggles to sit up, and when she opens her eyes she fixes first Dom, then Elijah, with a glare.

"Pardon me, ma'am," Dom says politely, and gets out his wallet again. "We didn't mean to wake you," he adds. "Can I get you a coffee or a sandwich?"

If she hears him, the woman doesn't take Dom up on his offer. "You tink is de machine do all de work, but is me!" she proclaims grandly, still glowering at them both. "You take wishing fe joke, and me gon' show you how _all_ ting is possible!" She sweeps her arms out dramatically, pushing Dom's hand out of the way.

 _Oh, brother_ , Elijah thinks, as he and Dom exchange glances. "Sorry for bothering you," Elijah says, adopting Dom's tone, "and we're sorry for, um, making jokes out of wishes, so we'll just leave you in peace. Dom?"

"Sorry," Dom says again, waving as they set off.

"Everyting is possible!" the woman shouts after them, and they turn quickly to hide their laughter.

"Holy shit," Elijah giggles, stumbling into Dom as he does. "Now _that_ was interesting."

"Never a dull moment," Dom agrees, taking Elijah's arm, and Elijah slaps at him playfully before they start off in the opposite direction.

"So what'd you wish for before the crazy Jamaican lady intervened?" Elijah asks in the cab on the way back. "No, wait," he says, when Dom starts shaking his head. "You can't tell me, I know."

"Exactly."

"Any of your wishes come true, at least?" he says.

Dom tilts his head and takes Elijah in. "You're here with me, aren't you?"

"I'll take that as a yes," Elijah says, even as his face grows hot. "So she was right, then," he says.

"Well, I'm more thinking it's because you couldn't resist my charms," Dom admits, "but whatever floats your boat."

\--

_Sometimes Dom will wake Elijah up in the middle of the night for sex. "C'mon," he'll say, "haven't you ever done it in the pitch black?" or "you look so gorgeous in the moonlight," or "mmm, wanna fuck you right now." In that precarious window of time where sleep hasn't completely fogged his brain and morning breath hasn't had a chance to set in, Elijah will cling to the image of Dom hovering over him, hair disheveled and the faintest glint of his teeth visible in the dim._

_"Yeah, right there," Elijah will say, arching his back prettily for him._

\--

Dom wakes Elijah up at four in the morning, hair dishevelled, and he looks like shit. He's fully dressed. "C'mon, Lij, get up," he says breathlessly. "We have to go back."

Elijah blinks blearily. "What?"

Dom sighs impatiently. "To the deli. The carnival machine? We have to go back there, to the woman. Now."

"Wait," Elijah says. "Wait, you." He rubs at his eyes. His contacts must be sticking; he can't see anything right. He's got to stop sleeping in them. "Did you forget your wallet there or something? 'Cause dude, if you did, forget it, that's gone," he says.

Dom is pulling Elijah from bed and grabbing his jeans off of the floor and not listening to a word Elijah's saying. He stops and looks at Elijah. "Please, Elijah," he says, his eyes scarily intense. "We need to go. I have to go back."

Elijah finally sits up. "Dom, what's wrong? What's going on?"

"I'll explain later," Dom tells him, and tosses Elijah his jeans. He looks frantic, high-strung, barely held together behind the seams. He tugs his hands roughly through his hair as he paces the length of the bed waiting for Elijah to get dressed. Elijah doesn't say anything, just puts his jeans back on and finishes shrugging on his t-shirt.

"If it's that woman," he tries again, "I mean- Dom, it's four in the _morning_. She's probably not even there anymore, and if you think that machine'll-"

"Elijah." Dom says his name with alarming ferocity. "I can't. tell you now. I will. But not now."

"Well, gee, d'ya think you're being cryptic enough at four in the fucking morning, Dom?" Elijah tosses off, and fights the urge to add "and fuck you, anyway," because something desperate in Dom's expression softens the annoyance he feels at the secrecy. He takes his jacket when Dom hands it to him wordlessly, and nods when Dom kisses his temple in their apartment lobby, murmuring "sorry, Lij," and fights to keep his eyes open on the taxi ride back.

She's still there, pretty much where they'd left her earlier, propped up against the side of the machine. "You," Dom says immediately upon entering hearing range, and she stirs a little, turning to watch them. Elijah catches his arm, but Dom squirms out of his grasp.

"Dom," he says, faltering.

"What. did. you. do?" Dom asks the woman, his voice low and accusing. "What were you talking about earlier?"

"What," Elijah tries again, softly. "What are you..." he trails off, looking around. The street is empty except for them; no cops, no stragglers. He wonders if she _had_ robbed Dom, picked his pocket or something as they'd spoken to her earlier in the day.

The woman hoists herself up until she's sitting fully upright. "You take wishes fe joke," she says again simply, meeting Dom's gaze directly. "Me take dem serious, fe true. Very serious." She cocks an eyebrow. "You don' _like_ what you wish?"

"But I-" Dom's voice breaks. "I didn't mean it that way!" he shouts. "I didn't _mean_ for it-" he stops abruptly, putting a hand to his mouth.

The old lady nods. "You wish fe what you cyan't have, and me give it to you. You want me fe take it back? Me cyan't take it back now, you know." She shrugs, waving a hand dismissively.

"Dom? Dom, what are we talking about, here?" Elijah reaches out and puts a hand on Dom's shoulder. He is a rigid bow of tension beneath Elijah's fingers.

Dom doesn't say anything for a long time, to either of them. Then "how long?" he asks quietly, voice muffled through his fingers.

"Until it finish," the woman says cryptically. "Den everyting go back okay."

Elijah looks between the two of them, and back again. "Dom," he whispers. "Dom! For fuck's sake, man...."

Dom looks like he's thinking over what the woman said. He nods slowly, almost imperceptibly, then again, decisively. "All right," he says. " Okay. I- okay." He pauses. "What do I. What do I do?" he asks weakly, but the woman is already curling back up to sleep, and if she hears Dom, she chooses to ignore him. Elijah tries to watch his face for a clue, for some answer, but Dom avoids his gaze, ducking his head, even as he reaches out to the side for Elijah's hand. Elijah takes it and is surprised by how tightly Dom squeezes.

He turns on his heel to face Elijah. "I wanna get out of here," he says, defeated. He lets go of Elijah's hand and starts off like he just expects Elijah to follow. Elijah catches himself standing dumbly for a moment, watching Dom go, then steals a glance back at the homeless woman's prone body again.

"What did you-" he says, but she waves at him.

"Go," she says, still facing away. "He gon' push you away, but him need you like 'im need breat right now. G'won!" And Dom's already a half a block away, waiting to hail a cab, so Elijah stares after her for a moment, then goes, jogging to catch up to him.

Dom slumps into the back wearily when a taxi finally stops for them, and about a dozen times Elijah tries to start a conversation, but decides to say nothing at the last moment. Finally he opens his mouth. "Listen," he starts, "I--"

"When we get back, Lij, I promise," Dom says. He looks out of the window and sighs, fingers fiddling on his knees. He hasn't looked at Elijah once, and to Elijah he seems strangely small and slight silhouetted against the world outside.

They pass a Walgreen's along the way, and Dom stops the cab and gets out. "Wait here," he says, and goes inside, glaring pointedly at Elijah when he tries to follow. All right, then. Dom is keeping secrets from him, is conspiring with a crazy Jamaican homeless lady on the street, and quite possibly believes in supernatural wishes coming true. Pretty soon Elijah figures a tin hat's going to arrive in the mail addressed to Dom, and he doesn't know if he's prepared to handle that. He smokes while he waits, free hand shoved in his pocket, and watches the sky turn from deep blue to indigo as the sun begins to rise. He isn't surprised anymore when he finds himself longing for sunrise over the skyrise-free horizons of New Zealand, fiercely and desperately.

"All right," Dom says, coming up behind him, something in a bag clutched in his left hand. He half-hides it behind himself, like a child, when Elijah tries to peek, also like a child. "Let's go home."

"Where you'll tell me everything," Elijah says firmly.

"Unfortunately, yes," Dom says.

\--

"Okay, this is fucking ridiculous!" Elijah yells, pounding on the bathroom door. "Enough of this bullshit, Dom, you promised you'd tell me everything!"

"Look, do you want me to tell you everything, or just bits and pieces?" Dom's voice sounds muffled through the door.

"No, _you_ look," Elijah says hotly. "You start at the beginning and you explain this to me. Start with why you woke me up at four in the fucking morning for a wild fucking goose chase across fucking Manhattan when your life wasn't in danger."

"I wasn't feeling well," Dom says simply. "I thought maybe she could help."

"You're stalling, and you're full of shit."

"You're astute."

"I swear to God I'm going to break that door down," Elijah says. "I swear to God, Dom, don't make me come in there." He rolls up his sleeves slowly, and did he just say Dom was stalling? He's definitely stalling, now. "I'm gonna do it if you don't come out in ten seconds," he warns.

"Oh ferChrissake, Elijah," Dom says, and swings the door open. "Have at it, then." He steps aside.

Elijah doesn't move. "The truth," he tells Dom.

Dom nods. "The truth." He carries his package with him to the bed and sits down heavily, looking down at it. Elijah sits down next to him, one hand on Dom' s back, and tries to look too, but the only thing in Dom's hands is a stick, sort of bulbous on one end and narrow on the other. It looks like a pregnancy test, and immediately Elijah thinks of blood-sugar testers that diabetics use. Or is that the insulin needles? Only those have numbers and digital counters and things on them, he's pretty sure. Elijah can't see what's on this one. Dom has diabetes? That's what this is all about? Clearly he is still not fully awake yet.

"Okay, the truth," Dom says again, and sighs heavily, slumping and then rolling his shoulders. He turns the stick over and over in his hands as he speaks. "I wanted us to have kids together, you know?" he says softly. "So. I was making wishes, on the machine, and I wished for that. And maybe I was just kind of... talking, to no one in particular. And," he chuckles, a little hysterically, "maybe I. I might've said. I would have your kids if I could. 'Cause you'd be such a good dad, you know?"

"Dom, we." Elijah rubs Dom's back in circles, fingers pressing into his spine. With his other hand he reaches for Dom's hands, clutched together in his lap. "You know anytime we ask, Hannah said she would-- I mean, are you sick?" he blurts suddenly, confused. "Is that what this is? Are you. are you gonna be okay?"

"She changed my body, Lij," Dom's voice is almost a whisper, his head bowed low. It's scary, almost, seeing him like this, because anything that can bring Dom low like this is not something Elijah ever wants to encounter.

"What are you talking about? Who?" Elijah demands gently, pulling away and standing up in front of Dom. "Who changed your body? That lady on the street? Dom," he pleads, sinking to his knees. "You're telling me things and I have no idea what's going on! Just. Tell me! I'm sure whatever it is, I can handle it!"

Dom barks a laugh. "Right, how do I go about explaining this?" He takes one of Elijah's hands in his and places it between his legs. "Feel me," he says, and presses their hands up towards him, spreading his legs to accommodate them both. He obviously doesn't intend it as a come-on, so, frowning, Elijah humors him. He curls his fingers upwards, and they falter when they encounter empty space and baggy denim where he expects the cushion of Dom's balls to be, because what the fuck? It's possible that he says that out loud, but he can't hear anything above the rushing of blood in his ears. Reaching further, his fingers come up against smooth firmness, high up where Dom's legs met. He looks up and sees Dom watching him, a line creased between his brows. Dom licks his lips, uncomfortable.

"It's all gone," Dom says slowly, and at any other moment in history this statement would bring tears to Elijah's eyes in its sheer hilarity. Even now it it's absurdly funny, but Elijah doesn't dare laugh. He's afraid he won't ever be able to stop, not even to consider the horrible truth of the situation. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?" Dom adds carefully, raising his eyebrows.

Without answering him, Elijah pulls his fingers out of Dom's grasp, scrabbling for the belt on Dom's jeans and tugging and pulling it aside, working the button-fly as he does. He shoves a hand down into Dom's pants and probes, freezing when a finger slips inside of Dom. It's not supposed to be this way, it's all wrong, it's in the wrong place and it's warm and moist, and "jesus," they both whisper, Dom gasping a little and grabbing at Elijah's wrist when he does it.

Elijah pulls his hand away like Dom's on fire. He swallows hard and meets Dom's eyes. Suddenly it's like everything's going in slow motion. "She did this to you?" he asks, his voice pitched high with hysteria, and yet even that seems slowed down, running in quarter-time. This is a dream, Elijah decides. That's the only possible explanation. No need to overreact. Just ride out the lovely dream where Dom has a pussy, yeah. It'll all be over in the morning.

Dom nods, rueful. "Be careful what you wish for, yeah?" His chuckle is humorless, and he tosses the stick backwards onto the bed, falling on his back to join it, jeans still undone. His stomach hollows when he exhales, and when Elijah looks, he can't resist running his fingers over the place where Dom's pelvic bones jut out slightly. They're a couple of inches further out to the sides, now.

"Your hips," Elijah whispers, tracing them softly as if it's the first time all over again.

"Wider," Dom answers, as if he knows what Elijah means. His breath still hitches at the right moments, at sensitive patches of skin where Elijah's fingers snag. His voice still sounds the same, the trail of hair beneath his navel still present and accounted for.

Elijah pushes Dom's shirt backwards up his chest, and Dom doesn't look much different there, either. Bigger nipples, he does notice that, but no increase in cup size, and what kind of girl would that make Dom? With a hairy, flat chest, and that deep voice, and hello, Dom still has a beard, and this is the most ridiculous dream Elijah has ever had. Dom'll have a good laugh about it when Elijah tells him about it in the morning.

Elijah doesn't say any of this. "I don't understand," is what he does say. "Why would she just change- you're still the same everywhere, except-"

"Because of my wish," Dom tells him, like he's explaining it to a child, propping himself up on his elbows. "I didn't wish to be a woman, you know. I wished to have your kids, and now the world's gone mad. Er, speaking of which-" he fishes around behind him for the stick where he'd dropped it, then hands it to Elijah. Now that Elijah can see it clearly, there's a blue line down the middle. "ept" is written in the upper corner, as if Elijah needs to be told what it is, now. "Apparently, I'm pregnant," Dom tells him, and if his forced smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, Elijah supposes he can understand why. "Congratulations."

Elijah stares down at the pregnancy test in his hand, and thinks about it. In fact, thoughts are bubbling up in his head almost faster than he can process them, threatening to run out his ears if he doesn't do something about this insanity, and quickly. None of these thoughts are helping Elijah to make sense of what he's holding in his hands right now. "Sleep," he says, putting the stick aside carefully.

Dom frowns at him, confused. "What?" he says.

"Sleep will fix this," Elijah tells him matter-of-factly. "The sun's almost up, but we've got a few hours. We can talk about this over breakfast later. Or not," he shrugs easily, "whatever, really, I don't care, we just need to sleep on this. Clearly. And everything will be okay."

Dom puts a hand on Elijah's forehead. "Elijah," he says softly, "I'm. I don't think you. We have to-"

"Sleeping now," Elijah says sweetly, and kisses Dom on the cheek, brushing Dom's hand away and making room on his side of the bed. He crawls up and over Dom's body and fluffs his pillow once before closing his eyes and slamming his head down on it. Sleep will make everything better. Then he will wake up and the dream would be over, and until then, he will make up his own logic. "No more crazy talk 'til morning," he says without opening his eyes, feeling Dom's gaze still on him.

He holds his breath until he hears Dom sigh and lay down next to him, on top of the sheets. He waits longer still for Dom's body to go lax with sleep, but Dom remains a tense presence next to him, awake and strumming with energy, until Elijah finally slips under.

\--

"... and then Elijah crashed out, I had a sandwich, and that was that," Dom is saying, when Elijah blinks against the sunlight in their room. Elijah scowls when he sees that Dom's drawn the curtains already, because of all people, Dom should know better, the both of them being like vampires in the morning. It's only - Elijah checks the clock - 2 p.m. Wait, that's not right.

"Fuck," he yells. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"I _know_ , it's _crazy_!" Dom's saying. Billy, no doubt. "I dunno, I'm kind of excited actu--"

Suddenly memory clicks into place. _Excited_ , Dom said. About. "Dom?"

"-hang on, Bill." Dom puts his cell phone between his chin and shoulder and looks back at Elijah. "Wait your turn, you," he says. "You said you didn't want to talk about it," he adds, the picture of innocence.

"Didn't wanna talk about what?" Elijah narrows his eyes warily. "About the. what. last night?" Tell me we drank too much, tell me I snorted a line of something and had a bad trip, tell me anything, just don't tell me yes, he pleads with his eyes, sending telepathic messages straight from his brain to Dom's. Which, considering, isn't that strange a notion anymore.

Dom sighs dramatically and comes over to him, his head tilted sadly. "About my wish. About what happened?" he says. He's still wearing the clothes he'd gone to bed in, jeans still undone and hanging loosely on his hips. Elijah just stares at him, and Dom sighs again, bringing the cell back to his ear. "Listen, Billy, I'm gonna have to call you back. Yeah, I think he's gonna need it. Thanks, I will, bye."

"Yeah, about that whole pregnant thing," Elijah says, "and also, what does Billy say I'm gonna need?" he starts, but Dom cuts him off, sitting by his legs on the bed.

"This is real, Elijah," Dom tells him, and there's something so painfully honest about the look in his eyes that Elijah forgets to breathe for a moment. "I know it sounds completely impossible, and like something somebody'd make up and put in a movie somewhere, or a horrible practical joke. I don't know if I'd believe it myself if it wasn't my body. But it's really happening.

"And, ah," Dom looks away now, studies the comforter beneath his hands. "I did a lot of thinking, after it. After it happened, you know, this morning," he continues, hands straying over Elijah's knees under the sheets, stroking lightly and tracing patterns absently. "At first I didn't like it any more than you do. Hell, I'm not sure I like it now. But the more I think about it, the more I think... well, this _is_ , sort of, what we wanted, in a kind of round about way, anyway." His brow is creased in a sort of bewildered look Elijah can't quite place, but knows he's mirroring it all the same.

"Wanted?" Elijah asks him, incredulous. "This is what we _wanted_? For you to. be pregna- I can't even say it, Dom, this is not happening," he says, bringing his hands to his face.

"Unexpected pregnancies happen all the time," Dom says, unhelpfully.

" _To women_!" Elijah hears the shriek in his own voice, and claws at his face for a moment.

"Well, it's kind of beside the point, isn't it?" Dom answers.

Elijah drops his hands in disbelief. "How can you-" he shakes his head. "How can you be so okay with this? You know how ridiculous it sounds, you say you do, and then you. How can you act like this is normal? This is Twilight Zone, Dom. This is aliens coming to eat your brain crazy, and you're acting like you're trying to pick which CD to buy this week. I mean, do you seriously want this to happen?"

Dom gets up off the bed and paces for a second, like he's got nowhere to go. His mouth is pinched tight, Elijah can see dark circles under Dom's eyes from this angle, and he realizes suddenly that he's wrong, that Dom isn't taking this flippantly at all. He remembers, now, that he fell asleep before Dom did, and wonders if Dom ever did sleep after that.

"I can't bloody well fix this, can I?" Dom says then, his voice low and slightly choked. "I mean, I-" he presses his lips together again and closes his eyes, then opens them, steely now, and focused on Elijah. "What am I supposed to do, Elijah?" he almost whispers, but no less intensely. "You tell me. I can't say the crazy old lady made it all up, when she took my- I'm a woman from the waist down, Lij. She fucking emasculated me. What choice do I have?" He sits back down, burying his own face in his hands. "Can't I try to make the best of a bad situation?" he asks, through his fingers.

"Oh, Dom, she," Elijah says, suddenly apologetic. He leans forward and puts his chin on Dom's shoulder, looping his arms around his waist. "Dom, she didn't- she didn't emasculate you. She didn't even _castrate_ you for fuck's sake, she just." What _did_ she do? "...made a little swap," he finishes lamely. And then, to his horror, he giggles, completely against his will. He smacks a hand to his mouth to stifle it a moment too late. Dom, peering back at him over his fingers, seems to debate between glowering and joining in, and finally allows himself a grin.

"Well," he says sullenly. "Not a _little_ swap," and Elijah finally lets his laughter out, silliness and absurdity washing over him in waves, until his lungs ache and Dom collapses next to him, panting in great heaving breaths. "So," Dom sighs, and reaches out for Elijah's closest hand. "Are we gonna talk about this now?"

Elijah takes Dom's hand and for a moment he isn't sure what to do with it. He wants to squeeze it and pet it gently and kiss it and place it over Dom's stomach to see if it feels any different, all at the same time. He settles for tracing the soft skin on the back of it with his fingertips. "Yeah," he says. "I guess we are."

"Great," Dom says, pulling his hand back and scratching at it. "Um. So, I want you to know, Lij. I'm glad you didn't--" he shrugs, first one shoulder, then the other-- "run off, screaming, into the night or anything when this all came out."

Elijah smiles. "You wouldn't've let me. But I would never leave anyway."

"Not even if you thought I was mad as a hatter," Dom agrees.

"Well, you _are_ mad as a hatter," Elijah says, "but no, even though it seems that, um." He still can't quite wrap his mind around it. "That. this... incredibly strange thing has happened to you, to us, um. No, I still wouldn't leave." Because where would he go, anyway? Anywhere he can think of to run away to, he'd want Dom to be there.

"I am sorry, though," Dom says, after a while. "I mean, it was _my_ wish. Here I think I'm just throwing a thought out to the universe, and it turns out somebody's bloody listening."

"Yeah, well, in the future you just be careful with your crazy impossible wishes that crazy old Jamaican genies decide to grant for you, okay?" Elijah pokes him in the side and presses his forehead to Dom's shoulder. He smells stale, of heat and old cologne and a day's worth of sweat, but Elijah doesn't suppose he smells any better himself. It's comforting and distinctive and he could really use the familiarity right now anyway.

"Point taken," Dom says. "But either way, I ended up making the decision for the both of us, and." He sighs, for what must be the hundredth time. "And I don't think I want to unwish it." He glances at Elijah furtively. "I hope you're not feeling like you just have to go along with it."

Elijah props himself up on one arm and stares down at him. "Dom, it's not like you, like, stopped taking your birth control behind my back or anything, all right?" He lets himself smile again, and Dom laughs a little, and that's more of the reaction he wanted.

"This was definitely an entrapment pregnancy," Dom declares. "I had to make sure you wouldn't go anywhere."

"You scheming little cunt," Elijah says, relieved that nothing can happen to them that is so absurd they can't still laugh about it. It's this knowledge that Elijah holds on to while the rest of him is still reeling. _Pregnant_ , he thinks. He's going to be a dad. Unbelievable. He's not entirely sure he'd want to unwish it, either. "So I guess you already told Billy," he says.

Dom nods. "Yeah. First person I called, I don't know why. Not even me own mother."

"Yeah," Elijah understands. He wants to talk to Sean about this before his mother, too. He suspects it's about needing commiseration more than comfort right now. "How'd he take it?"

"Well, of course he didn't believe me at first," Dom says. "But eventually he came 'round. Was quite good about it actually. Said, 'well, who'm I going to go for a drink with when I come out fer a visit?' He sounded pretty disappointed when I told him he'd have to settle for you."

Elijah smiles. "At least he believed you, right?"

"Well, even I know when to let a joke die, Lij. He knows I wouldn't put him on about something like this."

Good old Billy, now there's a mate. Elijah feels a surge of giddy love for him, and hopes Sean will be that good about it. "Subject matter considered, I'd say that's pretty big of him," he says. "Hey, Dom?"

"Yeah?"

"What did Billy say I needed?" 

"Time," Dom replies.

\--

Sean is more understanding than Elijah would have expected about the news, and Elijah knows this because he listens very carefully for any trace of "humor the crazy person" in Sean's reaction, but Sean can be so pleasantly encouraging on a good day that he just can't hear it.

"What I'm really more interested in," he tells Sean, "is what you think of this whole..." he struggles for a moment. "... Magical, crazy voodoo pregnancy thing."

"Well, the thing is that it's verifiable, right?" Sean says. "I mean, the pregnancy test came out positive? Have you guys been to an actual doctor yet?"

"Today," Elijah mumbles, "and yeah, the test was positive. Also, um," he adds, "physically, he's. not the same."

To his credit, Sean doesn't ask for elaboration. "How's he handling it?" he asks quietly.

Elijah shrugs. Loudly. "Right now he's sleeping. He didn't really get any all night, so."

"Yeah, I'd imagine."

"I think he's taking it better than I am," Elijah admits. "Less freaking out in general from him, in fact."

"Well, he's had longer to get used to the idea, Lij," Sean says, like nothing could be more obvious. "And you know, he's probably just better at sort of accepting his destiny, letting this sort of thing wash over him. And you know this already, why am I telling you this?"

"Because I seem to have forgotten in this case?" Because somehow if Sean can keep talking, things will be a little more bearable.

"Well, you know you're in for a helluva ride," Sean tells him.

"And I have no idea what I'm doing," he says. So now they've both stated the obvious and can move on from there.

"No, look, but who does?" Sean says. "No, listen to me, though- you'll be fine if you just remember the most fundamental, important rules about being a good partner during pregnancy."

"And what're those?" Elijah mumbles, suddenly sullen. Two days ago he'd been pretty sure he could be a good partner _without_ any rules. Now he doesn't know anything anymore.

"One- you got a pen? Write this down, it's very important."

"Sure, yeah, hang on," Elijah says. He's not writing anything down. He doesn't move, just pauses. "Okay, go 'head."

"One- Dom is always right," Sean says, "two, give him whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, and three, Dom is always right."

"Wow, I dunno, Sean, that's complicated. Sounds like being married." Elijah catches himself smiling into the phone despite himself.

"Shut up," Sean says, mock indignant. "I'm serious, here! I guarantee you you can't go wrong. Well, actually, that's a lie, because you can go wrong anytime Dom decides you're wrong. Which would then become the oft-forgotten rule number four. You're sure you're writing this stuff down?"

"Yup," Elijah nods out of reflex, looking out the window.

"No, you're not, 'cause I know you. Pop quiz: what's rule number two?"

Elijah brings a finger to his mouth and then stops, looking at his nail, before biting the fleshy part of his finger once, hard. It's only been two seconds since Sean said it, and Elijah's memory's never been that atrocious. "Give Dom whatever he wants?" he says, like he's not sure.

"Whenever he wants it," Sean stresses. "Very essential to remember that part. If you wait a half hour, not only will he not want it anymore, but he'll be pissed off at you for not giving it to him when he asked."

"Even though he doesn't want it anymore." Because this is different how, exactly, Elijah wants to say, but he knows that isn't quite true.

" _Especially_ because he doesn't want it anymore," Sean says. "It's all those hormones, Lij," he explains. "It wreaks havoc on their bodies, constantly fluctuating, 'til they don't even know which way is up anymore - and if they don't know, we sure as hell don't. It might even be worse for Dom, I couldn't tell you. I mean, what happens if you pump a guy full of estrogen all of a sudden?"

He doesn't know. "What?" Elijah asks.

"Hmmm?" Sean asks. "Oh, I don't know either, it was rhetorical."

\--

_"Oh, I want a dozen of 'em," Dom said. "Running around, pushing and pulling each other's hair, and you standing on the porch trying to get them to come in for supper."_

_"I see," Elijah flicked ash out the window as he drove. "And where are you in this Little House On the Prairie scenario, pray tell?"_

_"Off hard at work in the fields, of course." Dom paused, rubbed his temple. "Okay, maybe cooking supper inside."_

_Elijah smiled. "Thanks, that leaves me working the fields."_

_"Well," Dom said. "We're an equal partnership. You can cook the next day, all right?"_

\--

"First things first," Dom says, plucking the white-board they use for groceries and appointments off the fridge and turning his chair around to straddle it backwards. He uncaps the marker on its ledge and puts the cap in his mouth, starting to write. "Midwife or ob-gyn?" he says around the cap between his teeth, and if it didn't seem so inappropriate, Elijah would say that Dom's mouth forming those five letters is the sexiest thing he's seen all week. And that includes the face Dom made when Elijah slipped a finger inside him last night. Which he also isn't going to admit had been sexy. In retrospect.

He blinks. "Sorry, what?"

Dom stares at him over the white-board. "Only the most important pre-natal decision we can make here, how we're gonna bring this child into this world." He sits up a little straighter, smug. "I'd like to give him or her the best fighting start."

"Right," Elijah says slowly, pulling his finger out of his mouth to speak. He hadn't realized he'd been biting his nail until he does. "Well, I. I guess a. midwife? would be better?"

There was a time when Dom wouldn't have let the blatant Californian rhythm of his speech go uncommented on, but this time he just says, "brilliant. My thoughts exactly." He writes it down, then says, "but by the way, we're _not_ letting our child spend too much time in California, you _complete_ Valley doll." He keeps writing. "So I think it'll be better for me to not have to leave the apartment, you know, when I'm all--" Dom makes a broad gesture around him and puffs out his cheeks. "You know. Fat and everything." He checks the board again, frowning. "Well, I suppose I can leave home for Lamaze."

"You already have us doing Lamaze?"

"Well," Dom considers, "or yoga, but I thought you might like to be involved. I'm not taking any painkillers, that's for sure," he adds defensively. " And don't let me talk or beg you into it either, Lij. I'm serious, you gotta promise me."

Wide-eyed, Elijah nods. "I promise, yes. No painkillers."

"No matter what," Dom warns him. "Even if I threaten you and call you names. Even if I grab your balls and squeeze them and tell you I fucked your mother."

"Dom!" Elijah laughs, but Dom keeps a straight face, so he fights to compose himself. "All right. Scout's honor." He holds up his hand and covers his heart with the other one, still battling a smile he can hear in his voice. "No painkillers, upon pain of death. I swear."

Dom narrows his eyes at him, weighing his testimony, before accepting it with a nod. "All right, then." He goes back to his list. "Ooh!" he says. "Sex."

Elijah's stomach drops. "What _about_ sex?"

"Well, that I intend to keep on having it. And if you think I'm doing it by myself, well, you're crazy." Dom sighs dramatically, rolls his eyes. "But there is a problem."

"There is," Elijah nods. His stomach is still in his shoes somewhere. Still, they haven't had sex in two days, and the thought of nine months more is enough to make Elijah reconsider.

"I'm a virgin, for one," Dom announces.

Yeah, that does it. Shrieking with sudden laughter, Elijah stumbles back against the wall. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes. He flutters his hands around his face as if the action can bring more air into his lungs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he gasps, clutching his sides. "No, you're a virgin. Yes. I'm sorry."

"And I mean, this huge thing's gonna be coming out of me," Dom continues, like Elijah hasn't said anything, "so I might as well get used to things being in there all the time, you know?" 

"I really don't think so," Elijah says, still giggling. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Oh, come on," Dom says, grinning wickedly. "We can get me a strap-on and switch, yeah?" and that sets them both off again. "No, but seriously, Lij," he says, soberly. "As half-baked as it sounds, I miss you already-"

"I know, I-"

"-and if I'm going to have to go on like this-" he gestures to his stomach, then below his waist- "well, I don't want to have to lose _everything_."

"I'm not opposed to the idea, all right?" Elijah admits. "Just. questioning the wisdom of it and all."

"Oh, come on," Dom scoffs. "Get with the 21st century, man. You can do it all the way into the third trimester, I heard. In fact," he leans forward conspiratorially, raising his eyebrows. "Orgasm can actually help start the labor process. I dated a pregnant girl once, you know."

"Well, that isn't exactly what I meant," is all Elijah can muster in response. Then, "wait, what? You dated a pregnant chick?"

Dom nods. "Oh yeah. I mean, not nine months along or anything. More like four or five. They get awfully randy around that time, apparently...." his voice trails off as he reminisces. "And then, of course, they can't get pregnant, so it's win-win all 'round, really."

Elijah thinks about that. "What happens after the fifth month, then?"

Dom shrugs. "Baby grows horns or something, I don't know," he says, dismissive. "Can we focus on my needs now?"

\--

_Elijah once thought Dom was into bondage; that his leather cuffs and love of scarves, ties, and anything remotely rope-like would transfer over into his sex life._

_Dom shrugs when Elijah mentions it. "I like being bound, yeah," he agrees, "but there's not much sexual about it, really."_

_When Dom straddles him later, he uses his hands, not fabric, to pin Elijah's arms out to his sides. Elijah feels the thrill of being trapped, being forced into close proximity, being dominated. "If bondage isn't sexual, what else is it for?" he asks._

_"It reminds me I'm still here," Dom says._

\--

Dom falls back on the bed, his arms stretched above his head, and smiles coyly at Elijah. "So you get to be on top, then, just like that?" he asks. He looks so sexy, Elijah just wants to blow him. Now that he can't, he isn't exactly sure what Dom wants him to do next. He freezes.

"Uh," he says eloquently. "Sorry, I. Did you. Maybe--"

Dom rolls his eyes. "Shut up, you," he says, and tugs him up a little by the hair, and yeah, Elijah feels that one, all the way down to his toes. In fact, maybe he can't even feel his toes, because all circulation seems to be directed towards his cock. It's a lovely thing, that. He can't imagine how Dom is living without it.

There are a few misfires and mis-grabs, mis-reaches, and at one point Dom says, "and _I'm_ the virgin here, right?" He makes Elijah stop, later, because "it feels really different, you know," he says. His shirt is off and his hands palm Elijah's hips, curving over his ass. "Being turned on like this is weird."

"But you are turned on." Elijah breaks into a smile, his knee between Dom's thighs.

Elijah feels like an idiot when he reaches for the lube and Dom stops him. He's never had sex with a virgin before but he figures if he plays it by ear they should be fine. He survived his first time with Dom, and Dom is no delicate flower, no matter what body parts he's got.

Dom frowns a little at the first thrust, but doesn't say anything, and Elijah just hangs tight, thrusting shallowly, waiting for feedback and feeling lame. It feels good enough - Dom clenched around him, tight but not as tight as before - to make him want to keep going, but for now he can wait. A little. "Are you okay?" he finally asks.

Dom makes a strange, unreadable face. "Ow?" he says, and Elijah scowls. "No, it's getting better. Go ahead," Dom adds, reaching a hand down between them to touch himself tentatively, like the girls do in porn films. Elijah finds it infinitely hotter now, in person, no ridiculously inflated boobs bobbing around, no ruby red nails flicking over slick skin. Dom's motions become fluid after a moment, arm working smoothly, and he bites his lip.

Elijah's mesmerized by the sight of Dom's fingers directly above their joining, circling on himself and brushing Elijah's cock from time to time. It's. Well, it's hot, and Elijah keeps moving, inching forward, heat building all over his body. Dom sighs, and Elijah slips further into him amidst a sudden surge of wetness.

"Jesus, Dom," he gasps, driven to move faster, "I guess it can't be all bad-" and then suddenly Dom leans up, looping his free arm around Elijah's neck, and is kissing him, rocking his hips up against Elijah's.

"No, this," Dom whispers, nodding, "this is pretty good."

Elijah keeps his eyes wide open while they kiss, watching Dom's squeeze shut, feeling Dom's hand still working between their bodies. "Dom," he says, pulling away to breathe, "Dom, I," twisting now, his rhythm threatening to break. Dom's hand is working furiously now, and despite the obvious differences, there's still a fundamental familiarity to all this, of Dom straining towards orgasm and Elijah working to fight his. "Dom, I can't, I'm," he whispers into Dom's neck, into his mouth when Dom pulls him back for another bruising kiss. "Dom, this is--" His mouth burns with the scrape of Dom's stubble against his lips. He is on fire, everywhere, control tumbling away.

"I know," Dom gasps, "I know, oh, Lij, Lij, oh, wait, stop," and he moves his free hand from the nape of Elijah's neck to Elijah's hips, and stills him. Elijah's arms tremble with the effort of not moving, of _not_ burying himself to the hilt and _not_ using Dom's body to stroke himself the rest of the way to oblivion. Between them, the motions of Dom's hand reach a pitch.

They pant together for a long, breathless moment, gazes locked, before Dom cries out and shudders, back arching and body clenching suddenly around Elijah. And Elijah comes, too stunned to make any sound at all.

There's a long moment of uncomfortable silence between them during which Elijah rolls off and stares at the ceiling with enlightened eyes. Finally Dom says, "well. At least we don't have to worry about the awkward virgin birth explanation later on."

"Nine months of that, huh?" Elijah says. "If," he adds quickly, "you ever wanna do that again."

Dom sighs, a sigh of the long-suffering. "I could get used to it, I suppose," he says.

\--

The scent of toast and Earl Grey wakes Elijah up in the morning, and he sits up and has a cigarette, listening to Dom hum to himself in the kitchen. "You're sure busy at this hour," he observes, meeting Dom by the fridge when he's finished.

Dom shrugs. "Woke up early, felt a bit peckish, made breakfast." He holds up a plate of toast and sausages. "Want anything?"

"Mmm," Elijah shakes his head and opens the fridge. "Maybe just some coffee, thanks."

"Ooh." Elijah can hear him wince. "Not sure my stomach's gonna agree with that."

Elijah straightens to look back at him. "What do you mean?"

"Tried to make a pot earlier and was running for the toilet faster than you can say morning sickness from just the smell," Dom says. He shrugs, apologetic. "So no coffee. Sorry."

"You were sick this morning?" Elijah frowns. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," Dom says drily. "I'll be sure to bring you in with me next time."

He tries to scowl, but the look on Dom's face prevents it. "Dumbass, I meant you didn't mention not feeling well." He can't help but hover now. "So, um. Are you. do you feel okay and everything?"

"I'm fantastic now," Dom tells him, and takes a bite of toast, as if to make the point. He chews and rubs his stomach cheerfully. "Nothing but tea for little Dommie from now on, and we'll be fine!"

Elijah raises an eyebrow at him and smiles. "What, not little Lijah?" A sudden draft from the fridge hits him and he remembers he's standing in the open door. He shuts it and leans back against it. They're joking about names and Dom has morning sickness and it hits him all over again that Dom is going to have his baby. Theirs. He's maybe never going to get used to this and for a moment he thinks that the fridge is the only thing holding him up.

"Or little Lijah," Dom concedes, swallowing. "Or. Susan, or, or Jillian. Whichever. Either way, it doesn't like coffee."

"And everything else is okay? I mean," he clarifies. "Body-wise."

"Lij," Dom says patiently. "I'm like, four minutes pregnant. I'm clearly eating _now_ , enjoying a snack. I threw up, I recovered, I'm all right. Relax a little."

"So no weird cravings, then? You're not tired?"

"And now I live in Doting Daddy hell," Dom says.

Dom goes to parties and drinks sparkling water out of wine glasses and makes sure to be photographed licking his publicist, a hand suggestively inching her skirt up her thigh. He makes noises to E! about taking a year off, and jokes to ET about going hiking in the Himalayas. "I think some time in India might be really good for me, you know?" he says to their newest blonde reporter - Carrie, Carrel, something like that - "seeing what life is like for the people there, trying to help and be involved. I had forty trees planted in Bangladore last year, so I thought I might like to have a look see how they're doing."

Elijah, standing next to him, says, "I think Alanis Morissette did that once. Went to India, I mean."

"Oh, really?" Dom says.

"Yep." He smiles. "Totally changed person after that."

"Well, there you have it," Dom says, leaning in conspiratorially to the camera. "I'm going to go find myself."

It's all very convincing, and by the time the twentieth sound-byte hits the gossip columns, Dom starts squirming under the thumb of reality. "Thing is," he says wistfully into his oatmeal one morning, watching himself on TV, "I really wanted to go."

On-screen on Access Hollywood, Dom bursts into a rendition of "Thank U India," and Elijah joins in, thoroughly butchering the high notes.

\--

They get busy using the internet as a tool and manage to locate a midwife who specializes in water births named Marianne. She's agreeable about the confidentiality agreement, and surprisingly unfazed by the situation as they explain it. "Honey," she says simply, "in some of these places where the locals practice Santeria and animal sacrifice - I've seen it all. "

"You've seen men have babies?" Dom says, incredulous.

"I've seen men have _puppies_ ," she says.

They make it through their first ultrasound, though to Elijah it's more a test of his patience and endurance than a medical exam. He listens to Dom grouse about not being able to piss for the entire morning, and by the time they get to Marianne's private clinic, he never wants to hear another word about women and their shorter urethras again. "It looks like a peanut," Dom declares, half-prone on the table as they watch the baby on the monitor. "A little cashew. That's life-sized, right?"

"Sure is," Marianne says. "And don't expect any more definition than that at this stage. The genitals haven't even begun to form yet. But here," she points to an indistinguishable dark spot nearer to one end than the other, "is its heart."

"Brilliant," Dom says, awed. "A two and a half-inch peanut with no genitals."

When they get home they stick the picture on the fridge and examine it together. "I dunno, suddenly I feel like having some cashew nuts," Dom says, tilting his head sideways. Marianne had told them which end was which, but it doesn't look quite right, and Elijah's starting to feel like she just made it up. The dark spot that was supposed to be the baby's heart now looks an awful lot like a lot of dark spots all over the picture.

"Did you just make a joke about eating our baby?" Elijah says. "I didn't just hear that, did I?"

Dom's head snaps back up to look at him, and he claps his hands. "You just called it _our_ baby," he says gleefully, looking every bit the Dom Elijah knows; not the more thoughtful, serious version of the past couple of weeks. "Not _the_ baby? I think that's a first."

"Well..." Elijah says. He frowns, mulling it over. He doesn't think he's made a conscious effort not to address the baby properly before. He certainly didn't think Dom would notice anything like that, but this new thoughtful maternal Dom is a different story entirely. Besides, the baby _is_ their baby. "Well, yeah," he says.

"I'm getting this blown up," Dom says, tilting it a little on the fridge. "We should put it up in our bedroom. Our child's first photograph. What do you think?"

"I think it's going to curb our sex life," Elijah says honestly.

"Or," Dom says, "we could put it in the guest room."

\--

It only takes a few weeks before Elijah is spending every moment he can spare learning and relearning the curves of Dom's changing body. Dom is suddenly sensitive in places he never was before, and there's a newness there, a softness to him that Elijah's never noticed before. It probably wasn't there before, either, and Dom hasn't even started showing yet. Elijah comes up behind Dom and traces his fingertips lightly over Dom's shoulder, just to feel the goose-bumps prickle in their wake. That Dom shudders and shivers and tilts his head to bare more of his neck is merely an added benefit.

"You're so cold," Dom says.

"You're hot," Elijah responds without thinking, and when Dom laughs, he adds, "Well. You're hot that way, too." The few added degrees in Dom's body temperature means that Elijah feels practically scalded when he kisses Dom's jugular. Dom is becoming a fire and Elijah feels like he's the only thing keeping him from burning up and burning away.

After a few more weeks, if Elijah's being truly objective, he can't say that Dom really looks like he's getting bigger. Still, he knows that under the looser t-shirts and jackets, Dom's stomach isn't flat anymore and hasn't been for a while. Dom works around it, and they don't talk much about it, either. They've been stocking up on pre-natal vitamins and maternity things and books about pregnancy and have started peeking at baby clothes, and yet it's still somehow too new and different to put into words this strange new expansion to Dom's body. When Elijah rubs Dom's stomach and murmurs, "hey, you're starting to show," Dom smiles and nods.

"I am. I'm losing my girlish figure," he says mournfully, rolling his eyes at Elijah.

"That's okay," Elijah says. "I never cared much for your girlish figure anyway."

Dom can't do his regular jeans up anymore, and it's almost a surprise the morning it happens. It's creeped up on them until now, in unmeasurable increments, and finally it's reached a limit. "Well, I guess that's that, then," Dom says, examining himself in the full-length mirror with his shirt hiked up and jeans undone.

"I put all the maternity stuff in the boxes at the bottom of the closet," Elijah tells him, but Dom shakes his head.

"I don't think I can quite bring myself to wear them yet." He tugs his shirt down over the jeans in front. "It's like I'm not ready to admit it. I don't look that much different already, do I Lij?"

He doesn't look any different, and Elijah comes up from behind and puts his hand on Dom's stomach over his shirt. "It'll be okay for a while, I'm sure," he says.

"C'mere," Dom says. He rucks up his shirt again so that Elijah's touching his bare belly, and Elijah stands up on his toes and hooks his chin over Dom's shoulder. Together they watch the slight bulge of his stomach, one hand over the other's, for a moment.

Elijah kisses the spot behind Dom's ear and says, "I don't feel anything. Isn't this, like, week fourteen? Shouldn't we be having some action, here?"

Dom laughs a little at that. "Maybe it's a slow bloomer."

"Great. Probably'll be short, too," Elijah says.

"Don't think there's any way 'round that one," Dom agrees.

\--

_"Billy and Sean and Orlando for sure," Dom said. "Viggo should be there, too. Ian can come, and, oh, Pete and Fran and Phillipa. And our parents."_

_Elijah laughed. "Anybody else you wanna bring in for the festivities?"_

_"Well, I think the birth of a child should be an occasion," Dom argued. "It's a better excuse for a reunion than a bloody funeral, isn't it?"_

_"I know, it's true," Elijah said. "Are we doing the godparent thing, you think?" he asked._

_"That depends," Dom said. "What'll a kid do with twenty different sets of godparents?"_

_He agreed. "Very good point."_

\--

"So you're gonna come out for the birth, right?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," Billy says. "You know that. How _is_ Dom?"

"He's great," Elijah tells him. "He's showing now, you know."

"Oh is he, now?" Billy laughs. "Is that strange for you at all?"

"It's--" Elijah glances over his shoulder at Dom, who's standing and stretching. The curve of his back seems exaggerated, as if to compensate for the change in his center of gravity. "It's actually kind of sexy, I find," he admits.

"All right, I didn't want to know that," Billy says, cackling, and Elijah giggles.

"I know, I never would have thought it, either."

Dom comes over and puts his chin on Elijah's shoulder. "What's he saying," he says loudly. "Is Billy remarking on how sexy I've become?"

"Tell him I asked if the weight gain has helped with the trollishness any," Billy says.

Elijah laughs, and puts Billy on speaker. "You tell him," he says.

"Why, I was just telling Elijah how I'm sure the radiant glow of motherhood has made you more ravishing than ever," Billy says, his voice suddenly nothing but sweetness and light.

"Very kind of you, Bill," Dom says brusquely, "but I'm nobody's mother."

"Oh, Dom," Billy sighs, "did you tell your uterus that?"

\--

The new roundness to Dom's body is a constant source of fascination; Elijah monitors every change, every inch, and Dom adjusts his posture and his gait and the way he sits to accommodate everything. They have sex, Dom on top, and Elijah fans his fingers across Dom's stomach, feeling connected. 

After the first few times that Elijah catches the tentative flutters of the baby moving beneath Dom's skin, the baby becomes shy. Dom teases Elijah with the prospect of feeling it move, only to say "well, you've gone and scared him off, now," once Elijah's raced across the room to put his hand wherever Dom tells him to. 

"Okay, now I think you're just tormenting me," he says, grinning, the fourth time it happens in one evening. 

"Am I?" Dom asks him, eyes twinkling. He rocks back in his chair and slides Elijah's hand down an inch or two more, his grip on Elijah's wrist light. They pause there for a moment, and Elijah holds his breath as if he's listening, rather than feeling, for something. Finally Dom sighs. "Nope. He's gone." He lets go of Elijah's wrist. "Sorry," he adds. "It's just brushes, really, glimpses, him moving around a lot." 

"It's awesome, is what it is," Elijah says. "And I keep missing it." The situation seems startlingly unfair, Dom with the direct line of communication and Elijah the helpless bystander. He is surprised by his jealousy, but mainly he just wants to be involved in the minutia of it all. Long after Dom's tired of the baby's kicks, Elijah will still be thrilled by them. 

Dom's developed a suspicion early on that the baby's going to be a boy, and he becomes firmer in his belief the further along he goes. Elijah knows he can't argue with that because it's not like the baby is inside of _him_ , and if anyone would know, he's sure it'd be Dom. Sean asks if Dom's carrying high or low, and Elijah says, "I don't even know what that means! He sort of looks like he's carrying... sideways?" 

"Sideways which way?" 

He has no idea. "What difference does it make?" 

"Well, there's sideways horizontally, and there's sideways vertically," Sean says. "Like if you mean horizontally, that's high, Elijah," he says. "That's a girl." 

Marianne doesn't say anything about it at all, just offers to take a picture for them at the next ultrasound. "Absolutely not," Dom says. "I don't want to know." 

"But you said you already know!" Elijah says. 

"Well, I don't want to know _scientifically_ ," Dom says. 

When he asks Dom how he knows, Dom doesn't know how to explain it. "It's like, sometimes there's just a quiet moment, and he's awake but he's not movin' around," he starts, "and it just feels like... we understand each other. And I just feel it. I just know." He looks at Elijah sort of helplessly. "That's it." 

"You're making this up," Elijah says, and they both laugh. Dom curls into him and Elijah puts a hand over his stomach, lets it rest there. Through Dom's striped shirt - horizontal stripes, because Dom thinks it's cute and is working the beach-ball motif today - Elijah's pinky finger dips into his navel. He doesn't feel anything moving, just the slow rise of Dom's breaths. 

"I'm absolutely not making this up," Dom says. His eyebrows creep up as he snickers, giggles bubbling from his lips as he fights it and fails. Beneath Elijah's hand Dom's stomach jerks, and he rubs it thoughtfully. _We're happy, baby_ , he thinks. _Do something_. 

"You're going to be in for such a surprise if it's a girl, you know," he smiles, and Dom just shakes his head. 

"It's not gonna be a girl, Elijah," he says, and there's such certainty in his voice that Elijah believes him. 

\--

Elijah wants to see Her again; he hears the capitalization in his head. He doesn't know why he should or if he should, but he feels a pull to return, as if it would be wrong to abandon the source of it all just because they think they've got things figured out. He feels there should be things she knows, that if he goes to her he can maybe understand better than he does right now. He doesn't tell Dom he's going. He leaves him in bed and he'll let him think he's out for a smoke or meeting his publicist or doing late-night shopping for baby things or something else entirely. He grabs a cab and doesn't really let himself dwell on what he's doing, because he's not sure he has a plan yet. He hasn't worked out what he'll do if she's not there.

He wanders into the deli they'd visited first when he gets there, some strange notion in his head telling him to re-trace his steps, act as natural as possible. He buys a sandwich and saunters out again, a man on a mission. No guts, no glory, and it doesn't matter if she isn't there anyway, he tells himself. He knows it's not true.

Elijah turns the corner and it's like this block has been preserved, nothing different about it at all. He knows the homeless don't stay in the same places forever, and huge metal hunks of trash abandoned on sidewalks don't go unnoticed, and this block seems immune to these rules. He walks right up to the sleeping form next to the carnival machine and then hesitates. "Excuse me?" he says.

At first her only reaction is a deeper breath like a sigh of aggravation, and Elijah's about to say something again when she rolls her neck, turning, and examines him through slitted eyes. She doesn't say anything, and Elijah squirms a bit, uncomfortable. "I just wanted to," he begins, "see if you. If you were still here, and if you still. Remembered, I guess. What you did."

She doesn't say a word, and Elijah glances around the empty block in frustration before he tries again. "Don't you- don't you even wanna know how he is?" he asks. "I mean, can you at least tell me if he's gonna be okay?"

"Whedder he okay or not depend on him," the woman says, finally. "He depend on you, 'im don't know you depend on me."

"Why?" and all of his questions boil down to this one, really. "Why would you do this to someone?"

"You love de boy?" she asks him sharply.

"What does that-- yes, yeah, I do," Elijah says.

"Me do it because you love de boy, no matter what," she says simply. "Me tink 'im need fe know dat."

\--

Dom's hair is thicker now, a side benefit of the surge of hormones flooding his body, and Elijah studies his restored hairline for a bit before touching his fingers to it. He smooths over the swirls gently while Dom sleeps, then climbs into bed.

"Mmm," Dom mumbles, voice deepened with sleep, and turns towards Elijah, blinking blearily. "Where were you? I think I'm developing abandonment issues, now."

"I had a smoke or three," Elijah tells him, which is partially the truth.

"Three dozen, more like," Dom says, sliding an arm around Elijah's stomach and pulling him close. The curve of his stomach fits in the curve of Elijah's lower back, after a fashion. "What were you thinking about out there?" He inhales. "You reek."

"Nothing, it was nothing. I'm sorry, you want me to go shower?"

"No, stay." Dom's breath is hot against the back of Elijah's neck. "I was worried about you," he says softly, after a moment. "I don't know why. This thing is turning me into a bloody woman. The moods are fucking killing me, Lij."

"Maybe you worry 'cause all of a sudden you have things you want to take care of," Elijah says. He takes the hand Dom has resting on his hip and rubs his thumb over Dom's fingers, gripping when they curl around his.

"I don't reckon you worry about me, though, do you?" The Dom of before - and Elijah does find himself thinking that way sometimes, in terms of Before and After - would have laughed, saying this. Now Elijah hears the barest hint of a smile in Dom's voice. It's the smile of someone uncertain of the answer.

"I do," Elijah says, and squeezes Dom's hand. "I really do."

\--

"Oh my God, it's _real_ , look at your little belly!" Liv squeals the second she's in the door. She heads straight for Dom, hands outstretched to his stomach, and Elijah smirks.

"Nice to see you, too, Liv," he says, and shuts the door. He watches her put her head to Dom's stomach and start feeling around it like it's braille. It's as if Dom has become a baby with a person attached, instead of the other way around.

"Are you trying to listen for the ocean or something?" Dom asks her amusedly. He waves. "I'm up here. Hi."

"Oh, Dom," Liv says, and stands to give him a massive hug. "You look amazing. I can't believe this is really happening for you guys!" She is so radiant, grinning and brushing her hair away from her face, that Elijah can't help but think she should be the one who's pregnant. "And Elijah," she finally says, laughing and reaching out for him.

"Typical," Elijah says, hugging her back. "I just get ignored everywhere. Can't take _him_ out--" he gestures at Dom-- "anymore, everything's about the baby when I'm home, and who's the person to get all the attention when you come over?"

"Aw, I'm sorry, Elijah," Liv smiles. "But his little _belly_!" she says again, and rubs it a little.

"We were wondering if you could help us out a little," Dom says to her, taking her jacket into the living room with him. "Being a female, you know, you could maybe understand, give us some advice."

"But honey," Liv says apologetically as they sit down. "I've never been pregnant, I don't know what that's like at _all_. Can't you call your mothers? I'm sure they have much more to offer."

"There's a kind of awkwardness," Dom explains, "being a man, pregnant, asking your mother about. Like, nipple sensitivity." When Liv nods, he turns to her in earnest. "I was hoping you could tell me about. You know, about the hormones and things. What they do to you. I mean, you birds hold it together so well, and I'm. Well. I'm not. Doing so well, that is."

"He's quite terrifying, actually," Elijah puts in. 

"But you're _pregnant_ ," Liv coos unhelpfully. "You're _supposed_ to be moody and emotional and everything!" Her hand creeps closer to Dom's stomach as she speaks. "I mean, it's only for a few more months, right?"

"The books say it's just a stage," Dom agrees, giving her access when she gives in and pets his stomach again. "I was just hoping you'd have some tricks of the trade."

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you any," she says, and sounds like she means it. "Not anything that doesn't include Midol, anyway. Oh," she gasps, jumping suddenly. "Was that the baby kicking?"

"Yeah, he's really jumpy right now," Dom says, and moves her hand a bit, pressing her fingers in slightly.

"What? Where?" Elijah lunges forward and pushes his hand up against theirs, holding steady for a moment. He feels nothing.

Liv smiles, and removes her hand. "Aw, you missed it," she says. "It just went away."

\--

_"Will you still love me even when I'm up puking every morning?" Dom had said in the beginning. He'd propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Elijah, his expression a mockery of seriousness._

_Elijah had laughed. "Yes," he'd smiled. "I'll bring you water and soda crackers and still love you."_

_"And when I'm sending you out at two-thirty in the morning to buy me steak and ice cream?"_

_"I won't even complain."_

_"And when I'm throwing things at you in the middle of a mood swing, you'll still love me then?"_

_"I'll just duck," Elijah'd said._

_"Because of the mind-blowing sex, yeah?"_

_"Yup."_

\--

Dom wants to fuck _constantly_. Elijah can't complain -- regular sex at night, blowjobs while he watches TV, and handjobs while he checks his e-mail are pretty much the stuff dreams are made of -- but one day Dom straddles him, the baby a distracting presence between them, and he's not so sure.

The baby's become so much bigger now, and is always moving, so there's no real way to miss its constant kicks and punches and tumbles anymore. Elijah's grateful to finally be a part of that, but now Dom can tell what parts are poking where and Elijah's just amazed at the depths of Dom's intuition. Elijah can feel the baby moving against him, and frowns. "Dom, this is getting a little. I mean, the baby's still awake."

"Yeah," Dom nods, "the baby's awake and horny like me, what're you gonna do about it?"

"I'm gonna be wondering what part of the baby's poking into me while we fuck, is what," Elijah says.

Dom trails his fingers up the opening of Elijah's shirt, diverging to circle a nipple thoughtfully. "Well, you can put it in my arse, if it'll make you feel better," he says, and somehow, it does.

\--

Elijah has already mapped out in his head a thousand times what he wants the nursery to look like, but Dom won't let him start work on it until he hits the twenty-four week mark. "It's bad luck," he says, when Elijah brings it up.

"Well, what's worse luck: starting the nursery now, or the baby sleeping in a dresser drawer because we didn't have enough time to work on it?" Elijah says. 

They order furniture from catalogues and debate the merits of different types of mobiles, and Elijah thinks they've settled into a routine. It almost feels normal now, his pregnant boyfriend poring over color swatches in the kitchen, drinking water to quench his incessant thirst. Dom hasn't left the apartment in two months and hasn't had a haircut that Elijah didn't personally give him in four, and now his hair flips up in the back, a cowlick caused by his collars. Elijah thinks of these things and neither seems stranger or more outrageous than the other. 

"Oh, check this out," Dom says, leaning to the side to fit his elbow on the counter. The book he's reading from is resting on the shelf of his stomach. He's so unself-conscious about it that Elijah wants, suddenly, to place his hands in all the growing shadows and creases. "It says here," Dom says, "that mint green is a good color for the baby's nursery. It says green is supposed to represent good health, family, youth, spring, new beginnings, and-" he looks up and grins at Elijah, waggling his eyebrows- "wood."

Elijah laughs. "That's fantastic," he says. "Where's that from?"

Dom flips back to the cover to check. "Principles of Feng Shui," he says. "Perfect balance for the design of the nursery and all that."

"So are we going with a neutral theme, then?"

"I want to go with a 'whatever we want' theme," Dom says. "And I think I want a Manchester United poster right over the crib, 'cause this one's a footballer for sure." He palms his stomach absently.

"Nice," Elijah says. "A soccer player from the start."

"But just because I think he's a boy doesn't mean I want to go into this with any prejudices whatsoever," Dom tells him. "If she's a girl-- _if_ I'm wrong and she's a girl-- and she wants to play for Manchester United someday, then I'm gonna support her."

"She'll kick everybody's ass," Elijah grins.

"She'll take no prisoners," Dom agrees. He looks back down at the book. "Still gonna be a boy, though," he says.

\--

Dom blows up overnight. Elijah really has no other explanation for it. One day he looks pregnant, but manageably so and with reasonable proportions, and the next day he's more like --

"A fucking _house_ , Elijah," Dom yells in the morning after Elijah's already said a few choice _motherfucker_ s and _holy shit_ s. "This is. I'm. Barely human-shaped!" he goes on, making his way to the bathroom to weigh himself.

"I didn't think you could physically put on that much weight in one night," Elijah observes from the doorway. "How much, anyway?"

"Only three pounds!" Dom calls back. "Total pregnancy gain of..." he pauses, and they both count in their heads. "Thirty-two."

"That's not bad at all," Elijah concedes. "But Marianne said we should try not to break thirty, right?"

"Well, I wouldn't have," Dom says, "except for, well, now."

Elijah comes the rest of the way into the bathroom, and Dom has one hand on his forehead, the other supporting his back. Elijah replaces the back hand with his own, feels Dom lean into him slightly. "Your back okay?" he murmurs, massaging a little.

"'S fine," Dom says absently, "but don't stop." He heaves a sigh. "So where did all this come from?" He puts a hand on either side of his stomach. "What are you trying to do to me?" he asks it.

"Five more weeks," Elijah says, in an attempt to be helpful. "Looks like it's any day now or bust." Bust. He didn't mean it that way, but now that he's said it, he giggles, and Dom levels him with a glare.

"Longest five weeks of my life, it looks like," Dom says, plucking disdainfully at his shirt. "This is rubbish," he sighs again. Elijah bets it won't be that long, that it won't be five weeks. He doesn't say this, since he knows he has no way to tell. But he looks at Dom and slips his arm around Dom's side and suddenly Dom, who always seemed larger than Elijah, larger than the room, larger than life, even, seems small, imprisoned in this body that isn't wholly his anymore. It can't be that long.

\--

"You want me to bring you back anything?" Elijah asks every time before he leaves the apartment, and every time Dom laughs and groans and throws an arm over his face.

"I'm such a shut-in, Lij," he cries dramatically, sighing. Usually there's a book request, or newspaper, because in the past four months Dom's watched every movie he's ever wanted to see, and some he hasn't. Sometimes "we're out of ice cream," is all he says.

Dom reads over the scripts that Elijah's agent sends him, saying "this one's good" or "this one's crap," and jokes that if he's doing a better job of being Elijah's agent then he deserves 30%. He doesn't read the scripts his own agent sends. "I can't really manage to think about it - work - when I'm like this," he says. "I feel like there's not enough room in my mind for anything else right now, you know?" Elijah doesn't push him about it. He knows that having your internal organs pushed around can't be the most pleasant sensation imaginable. He knows that sleeping has been getting harder and harder for Dom and that he never feels like having sex anymore, and that the last months of pregnancy are known to seem interminably long. So he just doesn't ask, and Dom doesn't explain further.

Elijah smokes outside the front of their apartment, shoulders hunched and free hand shoved deep into his pocket. Two weeks ago he saw himself smoking in a grim photo inset on the cover of the _Enquirer_ , something about him being evicted because he couldn't get work. He'd brought it home for Dom and had a laugh before Dom cut it out carefully, taping it over the cover of one of Elijah's scripts. It's ironic, he thinks, that they have a stack of unread scripts between them and instead he's reading about the stages of labor; that the tabloids think he's become fucking boring when he's sitting on a story better than they could ever fabricate.

He chain-smokes and bites his nails and feels vaguely disappointed with himself for it - the nail-biting, anyway. He'd had just enough growth for a manicure the week before and now the clear polish bounces off his teeth, makes him work for the reward of tearing enamel, the satisfying spit that follows. He tries not to justify it, but somehow the smoking has changed from an addiction into an escape.

He doesn't have to leave the apartment to smoke - his banishment only extends to the bedroom because the smell started to make Dom sick- but he soon volunteered because it was easier. It makes him feel better, like he's doing his part to keep the home a safe haven for the baby, and if the benefit of that is he gets some fresh air and a walk around the block, some scenery that isn't the same walls and the same baby catalogues and the same broad expanse that is Dom's profile, then, well. He shouldn't feel this way, he knows, but he does.

\--

They move all the furniture out of the guest room and Dom spends two weeks decorating it as the nursery, shunning Elijah's offers to help. He paints the walls the perfect shade of green and then gives the room a border of footballs drawn in his freehand, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He is vaguely Buddha-like, protrudent belly and gaze of stern concentration on his face, his grip on the paintbrush awkward but precise. Elijah watches him work and suddenly thinks, wow, this kid is going to be so lucky.

By the time the baby furniture arrives, Dom's mobility is more limited, and they swap roles. Dom leans against the ladder by the wall and directs Elijah, waving his hand. "Not so close to the corner," he says. "Leave it a little room, there."

Elijah puts the end of the crib he's carrying down and straightens to look back at him. "I was kind of thinking it'd be better in case something falls out," he explains. "Then we don't have to go crawling all around to find it."

"I don't like that," Dom shakes his head. "I think we should be able to access it from every angle. In case something goes wrong, you know? No-- even further away from the wall, Elijah." He sits down on the first step of the ladder and leans back on his elbows a little.

Elijah shifts his gaze between Dom and the crib, considering, and then drags the end out a few more inches towards the center of the room. "We'll tweak it," he says, leaving the other end untouched. "Didn't one of those books say something about which way the head of the crib should face?"

Dom nods. "Based on the position of the baby when he sleeps, though." He narrows his eyes at Elijah slightly, a silent rebuke. "Are you leaving the other end like that, then?" he says, and Elijah stifles a sigh. He's the one who's pulled the boxes in from the front door and unpacked and unwrapped and fitted braces when necessary and it's not like he doesn't care about the placement of the crib and the changing table, it's not. He's naive, maybe, to think they've got three weeks and so what they don't sort out today can be sorted out tomorrow, but right now he'll settle for getting things roughly into place and worrying about the rest later. And right now Dom kind of sounds like his mother and that thought is upsetting him more than it needs to.

"I'll come back to it," Elijah says, and reaches for the corner of the changing table.

"That's gonna go across the room," Dom says, pointing, and Elijah stops.

"Do you have any actual plan for how you want the nursery to look?" he asks, and maybe he says it a bit sharper than he means to, because this is about as far from what he's had in mind as possible. "I mean," he says, "it's totally dark in that corner, where I'm assuming we're gonna want quite a bit of light--"

"Yeah," Dom nods, "we're gonna need another lamp over there."

"The point I'm getting at is there's perfectly good sunlight under the window," Elijah says.

"And the point _I'm_ getting at," Dom says, somewhat testily, "is if the sun is shining on the changing table all day, Elijah, at some point it's going to fry our kid's arse, so an extra bloody lamp isn't exactly a horrible idea."

"Okay," Elijah laughs, "first of all, the likelihood of the baby getting sunburn during like, a five-fucking-minute stint on the changing table is, like--"

"Why am I the only one taking this seriously, here?" Dom says, his voice raising, and too late Elijah wishes he'd just dropped the subject. "Why are you so against everything I've-- look, if you want to put it under the window, put it under the fucking window, then." He rises to his feet.

Elijah closes his eyes and counts to three. "Let's take a breather, okay?" he says, when he re-opens them.

For a second he thinks Dom's going to hurl the tape measure at _him_ , but Dom turns and whip-cracks it against the adjoining wall instead. Elijah can hear the crackle of the plastic casing splitting from the opposite end of the room and spends a second wondering if being right next to it sounds any different for Dom. Either way, it means Dom pretty much wins.

"Let's take a breather? You've gotta be kidding me," Dom says in disbelief. " _You_ wanna take a breather! All I've fucking done is sit in this apartment and eat ice cream because I can't go out there," he points, "outside, and take a fucking breather. You realize how long I've spent in here, Elijah?"

Elijah recalls Sean's advice about giving Dom whatever he wants and suddenly resents it, irrationally. "Okay, okay-- look, Dom, I'll move the table," he says.

"No, you know what, fuck you," Dom says fiercely, and crosses his arms over himself and puts one hand on his chin. Elijah thinks for one frightening moment that Dom is going to cry, but Dom doesn't; it's the one thing he's never done for the duration of the pregnancy. Giving in to moody tears is not Dom's modus operandi. After a long moment Dom exhales long and low, and Elijah remembers the tape measure and goes to get it. He walks so slowly and quietly that he can hear the carpet fibers bending under his weight, and he realizes that that means Dom's utterly silent, too.

The case on the measure is cracked but not broken, and it's left a scuff mark and tiny dent in the paint on the nursery wall. It's nothing that they, rather Elijah, can't fix in a matter of minutes. Elijah puts the measure on the changing table that he's definitely moving tonight, and when he turns back to Dom, Dom hasn't moved, isn't watching him, is still staring at the floor with a hand on his chin and the other on his stomach. He looks a strange combination of thoughtful and sad and suddenly Elijah remembers why he loves Dom, remembers how much he loves him. He remembers Dom and this baby and this life that they have and the changing table he's moving and the reason that he's moving it.

"We can get another lamp," he says, voice soft, approaching Dom warily. He puts a tentative hand on Dom's arm, and Dom doesn't flinch away.

\--

Elijah wakes up in the middle of the night as if he can sense Dom's absence. He can see the glow of the living room light in the hall and pads out to see what's up. Dom is there, perched on the sofa, reading one of Elijah's scripts, his brow furrowed in concentration and feet pulled up on the cushion.

"Is that any good?" he asks, sitting down next to him. He lifts Dom's feet onto his lap and strokes his ankles a bit.

Dom raises his eyebrows at him. "You couldn't sleep either?"

He shrugs. "I've got important things to worry about." He taps Dom's ankle with a finger right where it's most puffy and swollen. "You?"

"Baby's kicking, keeping me up." The look Dom gives him is unreadable for a moment. "Thanks," he says, "but my feet'll be fine. We don't both have to be up all night."

"Your ankles are swollen."

"They'll still be fine if I keep off them for a bit."

"When was the last time you felt happy, Dom?" Elijah asks suddenly.

"When was the last time I felt normal?" Dom fires back. He tilts his head back on the sofa's arm and presses the heels of his hands to his forehead for a moment, before dropping his arms again. He keeps on looking up, blinking rapidly.

Nothing is normal about the situation they're in, _nothing_ , and Elijah presses his lips together and doesn't say anything. He strokes Dom's ankles and leans back on the sofa and lets Dom finish with the script. When they're done he extends a hand to help Dom up.

"Thanks," Dom says.

\--

Billy arrives on a Tuesday and hugs Dom like it's nothing out of the ordinary, squeezing him as close as possible, laughing, and pecking him on the mouth before pulling away. He examines Dom carefully for a minute, eyes narrowed in thought, before Dom sighs.

"All right, Billy," he says, "out with it."

"You look very healthy, Dom," Billy says.

Dom shakes his head, and Elijah laughs. "Way to be diplomatic," Elijah says.

"No, I'm serious," Billy insists. "You do have a bit of that sort of. Glow, about you. Doesn't he, Elijah?"

Elijah holds up his hands. "Don't even get me into this," he says, laughing again. "I'm in the doghouse with him enough as it is."

"Dom," Billy scolds him, "you're not having Elijah sleep on the sofa or anything, are you?"

"No, that spot's reserved for you, Bill," Dom replies, slinging an arm around his shoulder.

Billy's duly impressed with the nursery, and if Dom isn't going to mention the private hell that was furnishing the joint, neither is Elijah. "You did these yourself, Dom?" Billy asks as he fingers the football pattern gently. "Must've taken you hours."

"Days," Dom corrects him. "Can't quite sit in one position too long anymore."

"So have you got a name for him already?" Billy says, rising to his feet again, and that's just another sore spot they've been trying to avoid. They've just been calling him "the baby" in the hopes that one day a name will spring to mind and be perfect. They know that's not how it works in real life, but there's a certain stubborn hope that keeps them from making a decision either way. "We haven't been able to agree on one," Elijah confesses.

"Well, there just isn't a catch-all name meaning 'genetic impossibility', and we were really counting on that one, you know?" Dom says.

\--

"I don't suppose you'd mind some company?" Billy asks, before the lobby door's even closed behind him. Elijah turns, clove in hand, and tries to calm his jittery nerves.

"No, not at all," he says, and shuffles a bit to the side for Billy to join him. "Is he sleeping?" he asks, gesturing back at the building.

Billy shakes his head. "I just left him for a minute. He's a big boy, Elijah."

Elijah bows his head under Billy's gaze. He didn't mean it like that, and Billy knows it. "Lonely, though."

"Yeah, that he is," Billy agrees. He nods at the clove in Elijah's hand. "Is that what this is all about?"

"I don't know which came first," he admits, shrugging. "I feel bad leaving without a reason."

"So what's your reason?"

Elijah looks at Billy sharply out of the corner of his eye and knows that _I needed a smoke_ isn't the right answer. "It's a bit much," he says quietly. "Being up there. Sometimes." Billy raises his eyebrow, and Elijah goes on in earnest. "I know, okay, I know, it's worse for Dom," he says. "I'm being selfish. I have enough Catholic guilt in me to last 'til the baby's in college." He takes an angry drag then stubs the butt out. "I'm going back up," he adds. "He shouldn't have to be alone up there."

"Now, that's the most sensible thing you've said all evening," Billy tells him, and Elijah grins.

"Did Dom put you up to this?" he says.

Billy holds the door open for him, smiling brightly. "He didn't have to, now, did he?" he says.

\--

"Lij. Elijah?"

He is awake immediately, too attuned to short set breaks, to Dom's every toss and turn, and to the impending D-Day for anything less. It's twenty after one in the morning, Dom is sitting primly on his side of the bed, hands folded, and Elijah knows.

"How far apart are they?" he asks, sitting upright. A bolt of adrenaline fires through him, and he feels his fingers tingle, aching for a smoke. He is rising to his knees and has a finger to his mouth before he catches himself.

Dom shakes his head. "'S'not that," he says. "Not quite. My water broke."

Elijah looks at him and feels around on the bed next to him. It's warm and wet like he pissed himself, and he leaps off of it. "Damn," he says, and Dom's mouth quirks to the side.

"I know," he says. "And all over the floor, too. Sorry." Like there's anything at all to apologize for. Like he should say _sorry for having your baby all over the bedroom floor, Lij_.

"Well, how do you feel? Are you having any contractions?"

Dom shrugs. "I feel fine," he says. "Last time I felt anything like a contraction was something like thirty-seven minutes ago, but really, not very painful."

Elijah yanks his hand away from his mouth again and bounds for the door, the mantra _make him comfortable, make him comfortable_ tumbling through his brain. "I'll make tea," he says. Then he'll run a bath, he thinks, because, something Marianne said, warm water, it's a good thing, and shit, this is the biggest day of his life and he's going to be useless. 

He stops at the doorway and realizes he's already messed up. "Do you need any help?" he asks Dom, who's leaning up against the dresser, amused. "Can I- shouldn't you be sitting down?"

"Well," Dom says, "I might, but the bed's wet, so, no."

Elijah cannot comprehend his own confusion. He's a planner, a generally well-organized person, and right now he cannot decide whether he should get his stopwatch before he goes to make tea or not, whether to help Dom into the kitchen or run the warm bath now. He is paralyzed by his inability to put two thoughts together in a logical formation.

"Look, Lij," Dom finally says, bless him, Elijah thinks, putting him out of his misery. "I'll come with you to the kitchen. You'll make tea. I'll have contractions. We'll. figure it out. Jesus, you're _trembling_. Want me to--"

"No," Elijah blurts. "I'm not, this, I." Dom heads towards him, and he fends him off. "I'm fine!" he says. "I'll be okay, this is you, this is all about you, and I'm just." Confused, and scared, and worried, because for every happy birth video he's seen he's also watched twenty gruesome trauma shows, and he knows Dom will be fine, but what if he's wrong? Suddenly Elijah can see with alarming clarity how a normal person can lose their mind and turn into Sean, eternal worrier. "I want you where I can see you," he says.

On the way to the kitchen Dom gives a sort of shocked, sudden retch, and pukes on the hallway floor. He's very tidy about it, which is what Elijah supposes a month of morning sickness will do to a person, but it's also incredibly foreboding, in a disturbing _and they're off!_ kind of way. "Fucking A," Elijah cries, gripping Dom's elbow in an attempt to pull him back. 

Dom looks down at the puddle, then up Elijah. "Marianne did say that might happen, didn't she," he says softly. "Fascinating." He raises a shaking hand to his mouth and looks back down again. "Also, sorry," he adds.

"You, stop apologizing," Elijah says.

\--

Elijah calls his mom while he boils the water, and Dom's mother and Billy while they drink the tea. Dom pukes again while Elijah's on the phone with Sean after tea, and that's when they decide they should maybe stay in the bathroom.

Dom pauses at the bathroom door, saying "hang on, hang on," and doesn't brush Elijah's hand away when he puts it on his stomach. 

"Contraction?" he asks, and immediately knows it's a stupid question.

Dom nods, breathing deeply. He breathes and breathes and then he breathes out and he's fine. He smiles a little and says, "did you get the time on that?" and that's two strikes for Elijah, because the stopwatch is in the kitchen next to the teakettle.

Elijah calls Marianne and she tells him not to call back until he's sure Dom is Satan and the contractions are less than five minutes apart for at least an hour. He doesn't have the heart to ask her if she's joking about the Satan part, because Dom is being really good about it. Dom knows all these great breathing exercises from yoga, things about breathing into pain and visualization and once he dared Elijah to pinch his thigh just to prove he couldn't feel it. Elijah thinks Dom has the whole thing pretty much under control, so he hovers and feels useless for a while and asks every few contractions if Dom is still all right.

Somehow they manage to get minutes of sleep between contractions after the sun rises and it's clear that nothing interesting is going to happen just yet. Dom wakes up every time the pain hits and Elijah wakes up every time Dom crushes his fingers between his own. They'd joked, once, about how much worse labor would be than being kicked in the balls, or hours sitting strapped into Treebeard. Elijah isn't going to ask, now.

Mostly, they just wait. They wait and wait and Elijah feels excited but thinks the terminology is lousy, talking about contractions hitting _slamming **crashing**_ into Dom every fifteen, ten, seven, five minutes. They've been more or less awake for twelve hours when Marianne comes by, chipper in the early afternoon, and says, "let's get this show on the road!"

They all get into the tub and it turns out the show consists of more breathing and watching and wondering when something's supposed to happen. Dom has the most interesting job of all of them and when Elijah asks how he's doing and Dom tells him "you don't want me to talk to you right now," Elijah believes him, thinking _whatever he wants_ without a hint of resentment this time around. In the videos they've watched, things have been edited to fit into nice half-hour packages, and Elijah knows now that giving birth is a lot more like making a movie: sitting around and waiting for about twenty times the length of the footage that's actually worth filming.

It takes forever and yet somehow it's been another two hours and Elijah doesn't know where the time has gone. In the fourteenth hour, Dom tilts his head back to Elijah's shoulder, reclined between his legs, and moans long and low. Elijah's forgotten what to watch for, his hand clutched numbly in Dom's. He expects a bang or fanfare or something to start feeling different, but all Dom does is slump slightly and then there is a baby, a whole baby, in Marianne's arms. Elijah thinks, _that's anticlimactic_ , and wishes he'd decided to film the birth after all, because he feels like he's missed everything important.

Their son - their son! - is a born swimmer, and barely makes a whimper when Marianne hands him to Dom. Elijah looks down at him through tear-filled eyes and cuts the cord and tries to ignore the pink tinge of blood in the water. Dom wipes at his eyes with his free hand, then pushes his sweaty bangs back, still gulping for air, and while Elijah knows he will never feel what Dom is feeling, he knows this: there is too much beauty in this room for him to catch his breath.

"Take him," Dom says thickly, wiping at his eyes again. "I can't, just-" he stops and sniffles, his face in his hand, and the water sloshes noisily as he squirms.

Elijah is struck by his sudden shyness, holding the baby in his arms for the first time. "I'm your dad," he murmurs, when the baby turns wide, unfocused eyes on him. "Happy birthday."

"Do you think he looks like me?" Dom asks, smiling weakly over at him.

"He has your mouth," Elijah says. "And your eyes."

"Oh, the opne thing I would have wanted you to pass on," Dom says.

"But he's so perfect this way," Elijah says. He smiles down at the baby apologetically. "We don't know what we're gonna call you yet, but you just hang in there, we will."

"What does he look like to you?" Dom says quietly.

The baby squeezes his eyes shut and yawns mightily, turning his head away. "Joshua," Elijah breathes, startled that any sound has come out at all. The name is sort of just. there, and Elijah doesn't know where it came from but is grateful for its appearance.

"He does look like a. like a Josh, doesn't he," Dom says. He leans up and brushes his finger by the baby's mouth and chuckles when he latches on, sucking. "Joshua Peter. What do you think of that, Josh?"

"He's thinking 'thank god my parents actually named me! I thought I was gonna have to be "the baby" for the rest of my life!'"

"Oh, that's not true," Dom says. "We would've started calling him TB for short."

Billy arrives a half hour later, and Sean calls to say he's on the next flight up. "You guys are perfect," he says, on speaker. "You handled everything wonderfully, I can't wait to see the little guy."

Dom was right; it's the perfect opportunity for a hobbit reunion, and when Billy holds Josh for the first time and says "well, hello there; I'm your uncle Bill," with a watery smile, Elijah's tears start up all over again.

\--

Josh wakes up crying at 2am, and Elijah is immediately awake. "Let me," he says to Dom, when Dom starts to slide out of bed. "You just-" _you just gave birth to him_ , Elijah thinks. _Take it easy, for god's sake_. He wonders if he's going to feel like he owes it to Dom forever. Probably.

"I've already got to piss, I'll handle it," Dom says, and bats Elijah's hands out of the way when he tries to stop him. "If I start hemorrhaging or something, I'll let you know, I promise." He shuffles out and Elijah stifles the urge to follow him. The plaintive note of Josh's cries tug at something in him. He can't bear it. When Josh is sixteen and asks for a car, Elijah will give it to him, remembering this sound.

It's just a few moments before Josh quiets down. Elijah can hear Dom's murmurs over the hum of the humidifier, but not well enough to make out what he's saying. "That was fast," he says, when Dom comes back, face contorted in a massive yawn.

"Didn't need feeding," Dom says tiredly from the bathroom. "Needed changing. I expect he'll be calling again in another hour--" he makes a surprised sound, and Elijah is on his feet in an instant.

"Dom?" 

"I'm back, Elijah," Dom's voice is full of disbelief. "I'm me again."

Elijah catches his foot on the comforter in his mad dash to meet Dom in the bathroom and crashes to the floor. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he says, when Dom leans out of the doorway, concerned. "I was just excited," he explains sheepishly.

In the nursery, Josh starts to cry again.

\--

"Did you put his bottle in?" Dom asks, peering into the baby's bag while Elijah throws their dishes into the kitchen sink.

Elijah glances over his shoulder at him. "Of course I did, that was the first thing I put in there. It's on the left, Dom."

"No, I see it, I see it." Dom plucks it from the bag and puts it on the right side, and Elijah turns back, shaking his head. "Where's the pacifier, in the pocket?"

"Left-hand pocket," Elijah says without turning around this time. He turns on the water and waits for it to get hot.

Dom speaks over the running water. "Do you see Squidgit anywher-- oh, nevermind, I found him." Squidgit is a little, green, foam squeeze toy they'd picked up at a novelty store that had nothing to do with the baby at all, just something they'd thought was cute after a bender. But one night when Josh was crying Dom had waved it in front of him, saying "please, please, I'm begging you, please, god, just stop crying." It had mesmerized Josh, and it's been in his bassinet with him since, as soon as they could verify it didn't have any hazardous pieces.

Elijah turns off the water and meets Dom at the table. Dom's moved Josh's pacifier and has it clipped to the outside of the bag in the front. He's stuffing Squidgit down in the back with the diapers, and Elijah sighs.

"Did you want to pack that yourself?" he asks, smiling.

"Well, I'm the one carrying it," Dom says matter-of-factly, not quite the Dom of Before, but no longer the Dom of After either. "I've got to be able to find things when I'm looking for them." He looks up reassuringly. "Elijah, I'm not questioning your packing ability, all right?"

Hailing a taxi is a whole new adventure with an extra person and several added pieces of furniture thrown into the mix, and they get passed up a few times before somebody finally stops for them. Josh doesn't like the change of direction and fusses for a bit before the motor's hum calms him back to sleep. Dom spends the ride leaning up against Elijah, chin on his shoulder, watching the two of them, and Elijah thinks this is the closest they've ever been, just like this.

"You got a sandwich the first time you were here, right?" Dom asks him when they reach the deli, and Elijah grins, pleased to know they still think the same way.

"Yeah," he nods. "Did you want anything?" he offers, and Dom shakes his head.

"I probably shouldn't," he says, and Elijah didn't think he'd do any differently. He's still got ten pounds of pregnancy weight he wants to lose, though Elijah's grown accustomed to the roundness in Dom's face, the curve of his hips, his slight double chin.

They round the corner of the next block and Elijah pulls up short, only a few steps behind Dom. Whatever magic it once possessed has stripped the sidewalk clean. He glances around and sees no indication that anyone ever congregated here, no hunk of junk taking up pedestrian space. It's like a void, this strip of land. Nothing is alive here, and Elijah feels the loss more profoundly than he'd expected, so many months ago.

"Wow," he says. "Everything's just. There's nothing left."

"Yeah," Dom says. "It's very." he sighs. "Very clean, isn't it?" He takes a few slow steps ahead, like he's waiting for something to appear, for some magical portal to open up and reveal itself. He puts a hand on the wall and pauses before turning back to Elijah.

"Let me have him," Dom says, reaching out for Josh, and Elijah gives him up, easing out of the Snugli straps. He shrugs his jacket on straight when he's free of them both, and reaches inside the baby's bag for the bottle, just in case, when Josh's eyes drift open slightly. It's a false alarm; he's back asleep again before he's had a chance to decide to cry.

Dom turns away again, and Elijah can hear his voice faintly, words spoken low, as he tours the sidewalk slowly. Dom turns and points at the ground before the wall and draws a circle in the air with his finger. Elijah hefts all the stuff in his arms up a few inches and strides closer to meet him.

"--and this is where daddy made the wish that made you happen!" Dom whispers animatedly, eyebrows to his hairline and eyes sparkling. He looks down at Josh and nods, "oh, yeah, he had a lot of explaining to do on that one-- and this is where the crazy old lady that granted the wish was laying down. And that's why we love her, yes we do, even though she completely meddled with our lives!"

"And your body," Elijah adds.

"And daddy's body!" Dom says.

"You really are crazy, you know that?" Elijah grins, and can't help but brush his palm over Josh's head when Dom comes back with him. "It's what got us into this mess in the first place, isn't it?" he asks, bowing over him.

"So you should be thanking me for it. It turned out pretty well, didn't it?" Dom says, and hands him back to Elijah. "I'm all finished here," he says. "Want to go home?"

Elijah glances at the corner again, up the untouched sidewalk and the ruddy brick wall, and thinks of making a wish. He thinks he can throw a thought out to the universe, too, feels Josh's light snores against his collarbone and knows he'll miss that before long. He makes it quick, glancing skyward, then nods. "Yeah, let's go," he says. He picks up the baby's bag and hands it to Dom, and they go. He doesn't even feel the urge to look back.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in full to LJ February 27, 2004.


End file.
